Other People's Conversations
by Joodiff
Summary: Sometimes it's impossible not to eavesdrop, but other people's conversations can lead to introspection. Challenge response. T-rated. Complete. Enjoy!


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing.

_Challenge response. T-rated for language and adult themes._

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**Other People's Conversations**

by Joodiff

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It's a great place for people-watching, the independent, family-owned coffee shop close to the end of George Street, and that's exactly why Grace likes it. Situated opposite the main entrance to a bustling covered market, and just a stone's throw from a small, busy urban park, there's always something interesting to watch from her preferred table by the window. Sometimes, when life is more hectic than usual, several weeks might pass between her visits, but she's been a loyal customer for so long that however much time elapses her return is always greeted with the kind of restrained but sincere smiles and pleasantries that never fail to remind her that there's a perfectly ordinary world beyond the gloomy semi-subterranean space where she spends so many long working hours. An ordinary world where serious crime is a jarring exception to the rule, not an everyday concern.

Most of her visits, like today's, fall on a Saturday morning. It's good, she's always felt, to try to maintain at least a semblance of a normal routine in her private life as a counterbalance to whatever stresses might plague her in her too-often busy and chaotic professional life. Until very recently she used to walk to the mediocre local supermarket, buy whatever necessities she required, then indulge herself with a leisurely cup of coffee and a spot of idle people-watching before returning home. It would have been much quicker and easier to drive, but she'd always deliberately chosen to walk whatever the weather, convinced that the moderate exercise would do her good.

Not anymore. Just a few weeks ago on a crisp, cold Sunday afternoon the creaky old bicycle that had been quietly rusting away in her semi-derelict shed for many years had been dragged out from a tangle of garden tools and other forgotten detritus and taken – despite her protestations – into the house where it had been methodically stripped, cleaned, oiled, reassembled and duly declared safely recommissioned. Now, it's waiting for her outside the coffee shop, its front basket empty and its newly-gleaming frame securely chained to a sturdy and helpfully placed metal post sited beside the street's pedestrian crossing. Gone are the days when she would have abandoned it there unsecured without a single thought or qualm. Nowadays such a thing is completely unheard of, and not just in big cities like London.

At first, Grace was more than dubious about the wisdom of returning to cycling after so very long, but after a few wobbly practice sessions to boost her confidence, she cautiously struck out alone into quiet local traffic and was immediately surprised by how fast she re-adapted to two wheeled travel. It seems, she muses now, idly glancing out at the bicycle to make sure it's still present and untampered with, that riding a bike really is exactly like… well, riding a bike.

It could be, probably _is_, a good analogy for other things in her life, too. Other things also relatively recently re-acquainted with but probably not suitable for deep contemplation in such a public place.

Still, the group of girls – _young women_ – who have settled at the table behind hers don't seem to share the same reticence. Their conversation is loud, confident, and what Grace's late mother might well have termed _bawdy_. Not really offensive, but certainly… frank.

When, she wonders, allowing her gaze to slip away from the bicycle and travel along the length of the street, did people talking so openly and publicly about their sex lives become such a normal, everyday thing? When _she_ was young –

_No,_ she tells herself with a firm mental shake. She's always prided herself on being adaptable, open-minded, and non-judgemental, and that's exactly how she's going to stay. Times have changed. What might have been considered completely unacceptable then is now –

_Stop it,_ Grace reproves herself, annoyed with the potent demonstration of her frequent unconscious need to justify herself. Not every damn thing needs explanation, let alone excusal. Just accept things as they are without trying to ascribe motive or meaning where none is needed.

It's difficult, though, not to unintentionally eavesdrop on the conversation when it's so close and so loud. She risks a quick, furtive glance over her shoulder at the group behind her. Four young women, the oldest of whom can't be older than twenty-four or so, sitting chatting at their chosen table. Perfectly normal. The woman currently holding forth is an attractive – _naturally_ – blonde; slim, confident, and fashionably dressed. Grace looks away before they can accidentally catch each other's eye, more out of ingrained habit than potential embarrassment.

"…and I said," the clear, London-accented voice continues, "'If it's just you and Justin, fine, but if Chris is gonna join in too, I'm going down the shop right now to buy some condoms'. He was all, like, 'Condoms? Why?', so I told him I wasn't risking another trip to the fucking clinic just because Chris is – "

It's the first time in her life that Grace has ever heard of a potential mini-orgy – or whatever the preferred term might be nowadays – being discussed in such a mundane setting. Not to mention by someone neither drunk nor stoned.

And people thought the sexual freedom of the 'sixties was –

_I'm invisible,_ she thinks suddenly, the notion driving everything else from her mind. _My God, I'm completely bloody invisible. It's not that they don't _care_ if I'm listening or not, they just don't recognise that I'm even here!_

It's a brutal moment of clarity. They're completely oblivious to her presence. To them, she's just… a little old lady sitting meekly in the corner, shopping bag at her feet. Less important and less visible to them than the comprehensive list of beverages and snacks hanging on the unpainted brick wall behind the counter. She simply… doesn't exist. Not to them.

All the extraordinary things she's done in her life, all the things she _is_, and suddenly, quietly sitting in her favourite coffee shop on a perfectly ordinary Saturday morning a group of complete strangers have effortlessly reduced her to nothing and no-one. A faded piece of background scenery easily overlooked.

_Is that my life now?_ Grace asks herself, appalled. _Am I just – _

Though her thoughts are a long way from the busy street she's gazing at without really seeing, automatic recognition snaps her out of the moment of deep, troubled introspection. On the other side of the road, briefly obscured by a passing red bus, a familiar figure has loped into view. He's running at his own pace, noticeably faster than a jog, but nowhere near a sprint, keeping to the outside edge of the pavement as he bears down on the pedestrian crossing. Nothing remarkable about him. Early-to-mid fifties, reasonably fit. Looks as if he could be a doctor or a lawyer. Maybe runs once or twice a week in the hope of staving off a stress-induced heart attack. Might be paying off the last remains of a mortgage on a nice house, and have grown-up kids away at university. No-one seems to notice him, either.

Only Grace.

The cavalier way he crosses the road indicates he's a Londoner, born and bred. Doesn't wait, just dives through the traffic close to the crossing, trusting his safety only to himself.

He slows down as he approaches the coffee shop, falling into an easy saunter that takes him past the window to the door.

The young women at the next table notice his arrival. Not intently, not ferociously, but they notice. Brief, casual appraisal of an attractive older man that lasts just a calculated couple of seconds before they also dismiss _him_ from their collective consciousness. Noticing them noticing him, however briefly, doesn't make Grace feel any better.

He drops into the empty chair on the opposite side of her table, not panting, but breathing with sturdy enthusiasm. His grey tee-shirt is sweat-marked, and there are conspicuous mud splashes on his shapeless tracksuit trousers that correspond with the unfortunate state of his footwear. She guesses he cut through the park instead of taking the longer route through the residential streets beyond. Maybe paused there under a big plane tree to catch his breath before running the last quarter mile or so. Eying him with resolute disapproval, she says, "Spence is right, you know, Boyd. No good ever came of running just for the sake of running."

He snorts and then nods at her almost empty cup. "Same again?"

As a distracting burst of laughter behind her draws his eye, she mumbles, "Mm, please."

His gaze returns to her, and a further moment of pointed silence precedes an impatient, "Well?"

With a deliberate lift of her eyebrows, Grace retorts, "Oh, I'm paying, am I?"

"Do I look like I've got any bloody money on me?"

It's her turn to snort, but since he has a valid point, she fishes in her handbag for her purse anyway. Extracting a single note, she hands it across the table. Boyd takes it without a word and gets back to his feet. As he wanders away towards the counter, another snatch of the conversation from the table behind reaches Grace's ears. As far as she can make out, the new boyfriend of another of the four women is very fond of the kind of erotic adventuring that the Marquis de Sade himself might well have endorsed, a fact that seems to meet with universal approval and a total lack of wonder. The pragmatic tone of the conversation the revelation engenders reminds her – strongly – of an outspoken psychologist friend who ultimately divorced her husband, moved to the US, and became an eminent sex therapist.

It's… disturbing. Not the type and variety of the acts under keen discussion – Grace is far too broad-minded for _that_ – but how easily, almost flippantly, the young women are openly sharing their various experiences of them.

Maybe, she thinks, looking out at the street again as the incredibly forthright conversation takes another turn, she really _is_ every bit as old and out-of-touch as they are unconsciously making her feel. Once upon a time, simply telling people she went to university in the late 'sixties used to draw raised eyebrows and knowing looks. Now… she doubts any of the women behind her would have the slightest clue what that fact alone used to imply.

Boyd returns while she is still pondering, two cups of coffee in hand. Cappuccino for her, macchiato for him. It's a joint minor indulgence, a pleasant change from the drab, murky liquid masquerading as coffee that they drink daily at work throughout the week. Settling opposite her again, he asks, "What's the matter with you?"

Grace resists the impulse to sigh. Instead, she finishes the last of her existing drink and says, "Mortality."

He frowns. "Eh?"

"Do you ever have moments when you suddenly realise that you're at least twenty years older than you generally imagine you are?"

The brusque way he shakes his head is definite. "No."

He probably doesn't, truth be known. He's a little younger than she is, and arguably has less time for abstract thought. Though by necessity they spend a lot of time looking back into the past, Boyd's job, and consequently much of his life, is much more reactive, much more immediate than hers. Grace looks at him for a moment, deliberately and carefully observing all the physical changes time has wrought since their first meeting. He's stockier, the once dark hair is now entirely grey – almost silver in some places – and both the laughter lines and the frown lines are deeper. Still, he somehow has the same bristling, indefinable edge about him that he always did. The suggestion of pent-up aggressive energy waiting to release, the not-so subtle hints of a quick, fierce temper that simmers only just beneath the surface. Not a young man, not by any means, but not old, either. Late middle-aged, and looks damned good on it.

"Sometimes," she says, not sure if she's making a huge mistake by admitting it, "I feel very old."

The noise Boyd makes in response is disparaging. "Oh, come _on_…"

"No," Grace insists, irritated by his impatient dismissal of what she's trying to convey, "I do."

The dark eyebrows draw together in a disbelieving frown. "Really?"

"Really." This time she does sigh. "Old and… irrelevant."

"Oh God," he says, his disgust clear, "you're having one of _those_ days."

It rankles. There are few people in the world who can get under her skin quite as fast and quite as effectively as he can. Yet she _still_ can't find a good enough reason to make herself seriously consider banishing him from her bedroom. Much less her bed. Giving him a haughty look, she asks, "Meaning?"

Boyd doesn't deign to answer her, just shakes his head and sips his macchiato. His attention wanders, his gaze shifting to the street, to the bicycle he suddenly took it into his head to dismantle, clean and reassemble, covering her entire kitchen in oily hand and fingerprints in the process. Not looking at her, he says, "You should try spending two bloody hours cooped up in a car with Brigitte Bardot. _That_ will make you feel old, I guarantee it."

Stella Goodman. The CCU's newest recruit. Young, enthusiastic, and French. Very young, very enthusiastic, and very French, in fact. She went to Brighton with Boyd the day before to interview a witness. Grace had wondered at the time if his unexpected choice of companion had been a Machiavellian one, a deliberate strategy to make an in-depth study of the young officer New Scotland Yard had foisted on them. Allowing a slight smile, she inquires, "She's not a fan of the _Stones_, then?"

He meets her eye and grunts. "At least you and I can compromise on _The Who_. Or Shostakovich at a pinch. Her choice of listening is…"

"Youthful?"

"Quite." His attention moves briefly to the quartet of young women, one of whom is now screeching with laughter. The way his expression becomes fixed and closed tells her that he's every bit as uncomfortably aware of their absolute favourite topic of conversation as she is. Must be a generational thing, she decides. Boyd is no prude – and if anyone's qualified to make that assessment, it's Grace. No prude, but very much a product of a strict, puritanical post-war upbringing that not even the full force of the latter half of the Swinging Sixties could quite expunge.

"Pretty girl," she says referring to Stella, wondering if he's off-guard enough to be drawn on the subject.

"I'm not blind," he informs her, ably demonstrating that he's got his wits about him, "but I'm not a complete idiot, either. Not blundering into that trap."

Reaching for her coffee, Grace smirks. From the table behind, into the moment of natural silence his blunt declaration leaves in its wake, falls an extremely loud, extremely clear, "I mean, in this day and age, what kind of man thinks it's okay to expect you to do _that _and then go down on him afterwards without at least _offering_ to return the favour?"

She freezes, just for a second, her hand briefly suspended in mid-air. It is only a tiny moment, but Boyd sees it. She knows he does, because in the very same instant she sees the way his eyebrows rocket skywards. They stare straight at each other, pinned in painful, startled fellowship, and then somehow break themselves out of it. Expression suddenly unreadable Boyd says, "Now _that_ is an interesting sociological question; wouldn't you say so, Doctor Foley?"

He just has that kind of voice. Even when he's not actively shouting, it carries. Perfectly, intentionally, and without any effort at all.

The abrupt, half embarrassed, half outraged silence it causes at the other table is ear-splitting.

Under other circumstances, Grace would likely berate him. Or at least aim a sharp kick at the nearest vulnerable ankle. Today, though… today she's entirely sympathetic. Adopting the firm, no-nonsense tone and manner she employs on the increasingly rare occasions when she's called on to give lectures to restless young undergraduates, she says, "More importantly, I think that it says a lot about how the perceived advancement of equality between the sexes is not the level playing field that many people wrongly assume it to be."

Boyd nods, his expression grave, studious. He scratches at the short bristles of his beard for a moment, a distinctive mannerism she knows very well. It can indicate stress, indecision, or, as now, deep and deliberate contemplation. He leans forwards in his chair, angling himself not towards her, but somehow towards the women behind her. The intelligent dark eyes look past her, find, settle and hold on something. On some_one_. With the same volume and perfect enunciation, he says, "Any man who shows so little interest in making the most of _all_ the delights to be found in the intimate mysteries of a woman's body really isn't worth a single moment of her time, let alone a reserved spot between her thighs. Take it from a guy who's been round the block a few times."

To kiss him or to kill him, that is the question. To paraphrase a certain Warwickshire playwright. The difficult decision will have to wait, though, because for the moment a tight-jawed Grace is concentrating far too hard on staring impassively into the middle-distance to do anything else.

There's a lot of sudden indignant fluttering and muttering from behind her. A lot of what sounds like frantic scrabbling for phones and handbags.

Her gaze locks onto the cheap painting hanging on the wall opposite. She's never really studied it properly before. Some sort of shadowy bucolic scene set under an improbable night sky. Farm house. Haycart. Moon. Star. Cloud. Tree. Something that might or might not be a horse. Or possibly a cow.

Movement. Lots of it. Not quite scurrying, but close.

The last of the young women to flee gives them a magnificently contemptuous look. To Boyd, she directs a scathing, "Pervert."

He's leaning back in his chair again now, a perfect study of languid indifference. His response is an indolent, "You have no idea."

"Well," Grace says as the coffee shop door slams closed behind his disgusted accuser, "as an exercise in crowd control, that worked rather well."

Boyd waves a dismissive hand in the air. "Fight fire with fire, Grace."

Watching the group of young women hurrying away along the pavement, she says, "You got the general gist, then, I take it?"

He nods. "Oh, trust me, I heard every single horrific word while I was waiting at the counter. Up to and including the improbable intimate dimensions of a young gentleman referred to as Ty."

Not sure she wants to know, Grace offers an inquiring, "Oh?"

"I didn't dare stop on the way back to clarify if they were referring to inches or centimetres."

"Worried you wouldn't measure up?"

Boyd shakes his head. "Worried they'd eat me alive."

She manufactures a disdainful sniff. "You _wish_."

"Actually, I don't." The hint of banter is gone from his voice. He regards her with quiet intensity. "Youth fades, Grace. Class, _true_ class, never does."

The implication is clear, and she acknowledges the unexpected compliment with a slight dip of her head.

"Youth is totally wasted on the young," he says, seeming to realise that she's not sure what to say next. Not a problem she usually finds herself with.

Glad of the deliberate shift in focus, Grace shakes her head to herself and poses a mainly rhetorical, "Were we ever like that, Boyd?"

The slightest flicker of a grin accompanies, "Well, I know _I_ bloody wasn't. Can't speak for you."

"I think," she admits, reflecting on the past, "that at that sort of age, I was probably too busy _doing_ it to be wasting much time talking about it."

The grin widens, though his tone is solemn as he inquires, "'It'?"

"'It'," Grace confirms. With a vague wave, she adds, "Summer of Love, all that sort of thing."

"If you say so." A deliberate pause. "_I_, of course, was still at school thinking about 'A' levels at the time."

He's crowed about the same thing so many times that it no longer needles her. Instead, she plays along. "And still as innocent as the day is long, I assume?"

Again, the grin. Sly, this time. "I didn't exactly say _that_."

"Fraud," Grace accuses, picking up her cup. "Finish this, then race you home?"

"How would that be fair?"

"You can't run as fast as I can cycle?" she asks innocently, expecting the implied challenge to rile him.

To her annoyance, Boyd doesn't rise to it. "Why would I want to?"

A change in tactics is required. Eyeing him over the rim of her cup, Grace muses, "Oh, I don't know… how about the promise of a nice hot shower in the company of someone indulgent enough to consider washing your back for you?"

The dark eyes glint at her. "I thought you were feeling old?"

"Not _that_ old," she says, the words heavy with meaning. It's not subtle, but then subtle is not a concept Peter Boyd is terribly well acquainted with.

"Do I get a head start?" he inquires.

"Only if you can drink your coffee faster than I can drink mine."

Boyd picks up his cup. "Challenge accepted."

_\- the end -_

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_The London Challenge: one of them overhears something in a coffee shop. Must include star, bus, bicycle, tree and something silver. Set between end of S4 and end of S7. Word count: minimum 1500, no maximum._


End file.
